Everyone did accept that because when you needed information from a page that pulls that shit, you don't have a choice, and when you did have a choice, all the others did it too.
Nowadays people just ask ChatGPT for the information they need so they don't have to visit those awful sites anymore.
> That's just because corporations got greedy and made their apps suck.
It is true for me with Linux. I code for a living and I can't change anything because I can't even build most software -- the usual configure/make/make install runs into tons of compiler errors most of the time.
Loss of control is an issue. I'm curious if AI tools will change that though.
> HN, and firefox users, can never decide where the money should go or what the goals should be.
Without ever having dealt with this problem, it sounds like an embarrassingly solved problem, in the sense of: He who gives the money, decides where it goes.
The other half is to provide features that are actually detrimental if you don't want them as plug-ins / extensions / whatever. Pocket is an example for this. Firefox OS is not because it's not force-bundled with Firefox to begin with.
> They're switching to Chrome because they just don't care about being fucked up the ass, or worse, they secretly want to be.
The point where you stop trying to understand your users is the point where you start losing them.
> Even revealing enough details, but not everything, about the flaw to convince a potential buyer would be detrimental to the seller, as the level of details required to convince would likely massively simplify the work of the buyer should they decide to try and find the flaw themselves instead of buying.
Is conning a seller really worth it for a potential buyer? Details will help an expert find the flaw, but it still takes lots of work, and there is the risk of not finding it (and the seller will be careful next time).
> And I imagine much of those potential buyers would be state actors or organized criminal groups, both of which do have researchers in house.
They also have the money to just buy an exploit.
> The real money to be made as a criminal alternative, I think, would be to exploit the flaw yourself on real life targets. For example to drop ransomware payloads; these days ransomware groups even offer franchises - they'll take, say, 15% of the ransom cut and provide assistance with laundering/exploiting the target/etc; and claim your infection in the name of their group.
I'd imagine the skills needed to get paid from ransomware victims without getting caught to be very different from the skills needed to find a vulnerability.
Using whatever platform you prefer with a subset of people is fine and doable, but you're lying to yourself if you think that it is the "start" of anything.
The "pairing" probably makes sense if you deep-dive into the technical details. My guess is that the battery has software on it to improve performance, total life, whatever.
The real problem is that the whole is not designed to be user-servicable.
> The only system failure was not canceling their license beforehand.
Why was their license not canceled beforehand?
Did they not get caught? If so, why? Likely other drivers have noticed the bad driving behavior. If so, why did they not report it? If they did report it, did the reports get ignored? Is there even a system and process in place for such reporting?
If they got caught, was there hesitation to revoke their license? If so, why? A potential factor would be driving in an area where you have to drive to get anywhere, which is common in the US. Why has it not been addressed that you have to drive, even if your driving habits are bad?
If bad driving behavior is too hard to punish, why? If regulations do not allow adequate punishment of bad driving behavior, why have these regulations not been changed? If evidence is missing, what evidence would that be, and how could it be collected?
If the driver was drunk, what would have been the alternative to driving? Is there adequate public transportation for drunks to get home? "adequate" depends on the drinking culture in the area where that happened.
If the driver was untrained, why were they allowed to drive? You wrote about canceling their license, so they did get a license. How was that possible without training? Does the process for handing out licenses have to be changed? Is frequent re-training necessary (more data is needed for that; if that data isn't avilable, why not?)
That was my first thought. A page that talks about cognitive load waits for you to start reading, then throws a newsletter sign-up dialog in your face? The irony...
Oh, but it gets better:
> We have been sold a lie that icons are the universal language of the modern interface.
... placed directly below a button bar that contains only icons.
Did you mean arrays instead of lists? Arrays behave as you describe (with ArrayStoreException when you write a wrong value to an array). List<> is invariant WRT its type parameter.
The book "How Big Things Get Done" by Bent Flyvbjerg nicely answers all the concerns mentioned in this thread. I'll answer here to avoid littering replies everywhere.
> But I do still think there's a lot of value into coming up with a good plan before jumping in.
Definitely, with emphasis on a _good_ plan. Most "plans" are bad and don't deserve that name.
> be specified up-front, planned on JIRA
Making a plan up-front is a good approach. A specification should be part of that plan. One should be ready to adapt it when needed during execution, but one should also strive to make the spec good enough to avoid changing.
HOWEVER, the "up-front specification" you mentioned was likely written _before_ making a plan, which is a bad approach. It was probably written as part of something that was called "planning" and has nothing to do with actual planning. In that case, the spec is pure fiction.
> estimates provided
Unless this project is exceptional, the estimates are probably fiction too.
> and Gantt charts setup
Gantt charts are a model, not a plan. Modeling is good; it gives you insight into the project. But a model should not be confused with a plan. It is just one tiny fragment you need to build a plan, and Gantt charts are just one of many many many types of models needed to build a plan.
> before they even sign the contract for the next milestone
That's a good thing. Signing a contract is an irreversible decision. The only contract that should be signed before planning is done is the contract that employs the planners.
> Anyone who claims upfront specs are the solution
See bove. A rigid upfront spec is usually not a plan, but pure fiction.
> My approach, especially for a project with a lot of unknowns, is usually to jump in right away and try to build a prototype.
Whether this is called planning or "jumping in" is a difference in terminology, not in the approach. The relevant clue is that you are experimenting with the problem to understand it, but you are NOT making irreversible decisions. By the terminology used in that book, you are _planning_, not _executing_.
> after the 2000 pages specification document was written, and passed down from the architects to the devs
If the 2000 page spec has never been passed to the devs while writing it, it's not part of a plan, it's pure fiction. Trying to develop software against that spec is part of planning.
Everyone did accept that because when you needed information from a page that pulls that shit, you don't have a choice, and when you did have a choice, all the others did it too.
Nowadays people just ask ChatGPT for the information they need so they don't have to visit those awful sites anymore.
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